The Letters We'll Never Send
by Winter 'neechan
Summary: A collection of drabbles about some things we just won't ever get the chance to or don't have the nerve to say. Will contain OCs, canons, multiple pairings, and possible OOC/AU moments and situations.  Ch. 5 now up! Subject: Noir
1. With Love

**A/N: Wahoo! So here I come with what will probably end up being a series of fairly depressing drabbles featuring a mix of canon characters, OCs, and pairings from the Tegamiverse, including my OCs and whoever else strikes me once I finish the one I'm working on, all based around the central theme of "those things we never say"...or in a more Tegami Bachi-like way of putting it, "the letters we'll never send."**

**Anyway, thanks to Chibi for sneaking on during grounding to Beta again and all of you readers! Hope everybody enjoys them!**

**Disclaimer: Tegami Bachi belongs to Hiroyuki Asada, my OCs and oneshots belong to me.**

**Now, on with the fanfic...**

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><p><strong>With Love<strong>

He stared up at the enormous armored bug in defeat, breathing heavily. His body was covered in gashes and cuts, his shindanjuu trembled in his hands and his dingo lay not too far off from where he stood, in a pile of blood and fur, letting out keening half-growl, half-howls of despair. "This is it, I guess." He muttered, glancing to his dingo. "I'm sorry, Oursa, we kinda blew it, eh?" He almost laughed, the beaten boy who was looking into the "face" of his demise. Somehow he found it hysterical that he had gotten this far to be beaten here, like this. She was supposed to be coming soon, too, and he wouldn't be there to fulfill his promise to her after all. Instead of trying to run away when he knew he would never get anywhere and his dingo could never follow him, he stood still with his arms outstretched, looking up to the Gaichuu that he knew would be the death of him and smiled as he thought of _her_.

He wondered if she would cry. She almost never cried; she tried to put things in the best light that she possibly could. He had always loved that about her. The question brought back memories of her—the glint of dark mahogany infused with a crimson blush of their own as her curls bounced like springs when she ran ahead of him, her brown eyes radiating nothing but warmth and kindness, the ringing laugh that he never got tired of hearing, the squirrel that was often found curled around her neck like a scarf, how she had told him that she would follow in his footsteps to Yuusari to become a Bee because she didn't want to lose her best friend… How ironic that was, she had made it to the interview and she was going to lose him anyway… "I'm so sorry, Sumomo." He whispered the words, still smiling.

That was when the Gaichuu lunged.

She arrived one week later, while the search for him was still in progress. They found blood, fur, and evidence of a pretty fierce fight, but no bodies or armor; whatever had happened, it was fairly unlikely that he was still alive. They told her three days after her arrival, the moment she set foot in the Beehive after finishing her exam and being given a position as a Letter Bee of the Yuusari Beehive. In spite of the tears that she shed over him, however, she still wished to keep her position as a Bee. It was what she had gone there to do, she was not about to quit simply because he was gone. It would honor _his_ memory, after all.

_~Three Years Later~_

She stepped out of the Beehive into the half-light that the man-made sun in Akatsuki cast over the city Central Yuusari, a city that was still half-asleep, as it was fairly early. Beside her, a blond boy clad in the same blue uniform she wore and a large, sturdy-bodied and brindle-furred dog tagged along a half-step behind her as she walked, leading the way. "So, Sumomo, you have any idea why Melody and I were assigned to go with you today? The town isn't that far away from Central and the gaichuu threat is minimal. Why waste two Bees to deliver a letter or two there?" The boy finally spoke up as they were reaching the end of the street, prompting the girl to look over at him and smile. This was the first time they had been on a delivery together, he and Sumomo had spoken before, but never at length, however, she seemed like a pretty cheerful and capable young woman. Lloyd's reason behind having he and Melody go with she and her dingo to make a delivery only a few towns over mystified him.

"Lloyd won't let us go on a delivery on our own outside of Central because apparently he thinks that Aki can't protect me, even if we passed the exam just fine on our own." At this, an angry chittering started up from Aki's scarf before a small, brown-furred head poked itself out from the folds of Sumomo's pale blue scarf. It seemed Aki highly disagreed with Lloyd's assumption. "There, there, shush Aki. You know I think it's really just an excuse—I think it's really because of him." The angry chittering stopped as she spoke a reached up to pet the discontented animal, who slipped his way out of the scarf entirely to perch himself on her shoulder. The squirrel was a rust color, a shade not entirely beyond being called a lighter, more faded shade of Sumomo's own rich deep mahogany red ringlets, with a compact body, but a rather long and fairly fluffy tail. Aki was surprisingly intelligent and good at his job in spite of his size, so far as he had heard.

"Him?" The boy asked, noting that this time when she looked at him, her eyes held sadness.

"My…well, he was my best friend best friend since childhood. We grew up together and he's actually my reason for becoming a Bee myself. He told me that his family was having a rough time with money, so he was going to come to Central and become a Bee to help out his family. I didn't want to lose my only friend, so I promised him that I would follow him as soon as I could, and he seemed happy about it. After convincing my parents to let me go and getting all the paperwork done, it took about a year, but I finally made it to the interview and exams, but then—would you like to meet him, Tripp? He's on the way to the town we're delivering to…well, as close to him as any of us can be." The boy, Tripp, frowned at her, wondering just what exactly she was going on about. She looked sad, but she wanted him to meet his guy? But then, the wording seemed a little bit off as well…what was wrong? What happened to this guy? It made Tripp curious, and he nodded, stumbling as he did, but Sumomo caught him before he fell.

"Sure, why not if he's on the route?" He shrugged as he finished speaking which brought the smile back to her lips. "Hey, I'm curious, the way you keep talking about him…what happened to him?" The smile faded as Sumomo blinked, eyes filled with happiness one moment, distant and sad the next.

"Nobody knows." She said flatly, Tripp paused a moment before he came back to his senses and went back to walking with her again, but looked away from her while Sumomo looked heavenward. She had always found the sight of the stars comforting, as thought that was where she thought her friend had gone and looking up at them meant she was looking up at him—something she had done her whole life. The conversation now effectively killed, she took up a one-sided conversation in her head, a kind of mental letter-writing and a comfort she engaged in nearly as much as she looked at the stars.

_Hey there, how is death treating you? Just as always, I miss you, but that's probably a line you're incredibly sick of hearing… I have a few out of town deliveries today, so Lloyd has sent Tripp and Melody with Aki and me. You remember Tripp and Melody, right? I've told you about them before—Tripp is a clumsy kid, but his heart really is in the right place, and his dingo is this really big dog who is incredibly sweet—that's Melody. She's so nice that she doesn't even bark at Aki! Anyway, you'll see soon, I'm taking them to meet you today…I hope you don't mind._

_I wonder if you've met anyone nice or cool in Heaven? Director Lloyd told me years ago that he lost a friend when he was young—her name was Elena Bran, do you know her? Also, just like always, I have to ask-have you run into Gauche there? We still haven't found him or heard from him of found him yet, so it'd be nice to know one of us finally found him after two years and finally put all the wondering and questions to rest—kinda like how it was with you—only we can't even look for him because he went missing in Akatsuki…_

_Anyway, life has been going fine for me, though I wish Lloyd would let Aki and I take out of town deliveries on our own. That's the only thing I really blame you for, you know? He watches me like a hawk because of you—it's ridiculous! I swear it's like he thinks I can't properly defend myself because you didn't come back! I not going to give up, I'm going to do my job well in your memory since that's why I'm here to begin with—why let a year's worth of trouble and pain go to waste? _In her head, it all seemed so logical, but maybe she was just illogical, she thought. How many girls were well enough to get up and go to work the day after they found out their best friend was most likely dead like she had and didn't explode into tears every time she thought about him? She remained fairly cheerful, optimistic girl who liked to brighten up the world around her like a star given human form. Sure, she got sad sometimes-she was human, after all—but she didn't let it get to her.

One of the first things Sumomo had done with her first pay was send some money with a letter home to his parents because she knew they needed it. The letter told them that she had gone to take the job there because of their son, but she seemed to instead be taking over for him. If so, she decided to go ahead and do just that. Her next pay was the start of a grave marker fund, which she informed his family in the next letter. Part of the money that she sent came back in the form of a letter covered in tears spots and ink smudges from his mother, telling her that the family could never thank her enough, could never repay her for her actions. Sumomo replied in a letter when she was paid next that she didn't wants thanks or money; it was what was right, so she was glad to do it. Eventually she had enough saved for the marker, which she had engraved with an epitaph that had resulted from a collaboration with his mother, and had it placed (with permission) on the roadside halfway between their hometown and Central.

She looked back to the path then, and realized with a jolt of surprise that they had traveled quite far in their time of silence. She smiled faintly as she spotted the familiar gray cement marker ahead, growing slowly as they closed the distance between them and the marker. It was almost as though he stood in the distance, waiting for her like he used to do what felt like forever ago. "They think he died, Tripp." She spoke suddenly, breaking the silence and startling the boy beside her. Tripp stumbled and she caught him once more, keeping him from hitting the road on his face, while the blond stared at her in complete confusion.

"W-what?" He sputtered in surprise; Sumomo turned her gaze on his face as she stood him back upright.

"You asked what happened to him and I told you no one knows. That's true, but they think he died." She pointed to the marker in the distance and Tripp's deep green eyes followed her finger before widening as he realized what he was looking at.

"They couldn't find his body, so we—his family and I—agreed to have the grave marker put up here because his heart was torn between our hometown and Central Yuusari. This is halfway between the two so people from our hometown and Central both can travel the same distance to see him. His mother and I came up with the epitaph together, and I paid for it. It was the least we could do." Melody ran ahead of them, oblivious to the serious conversation between her master and the normally cheerful girl, as Sumomo explained. Tripp listened the entire time, still wide-eyed and now possibly a bit pale. Suddenly his expression lightened as he seemed to puzzle something out.

"You…" He wasn't sure how to exactly bring up the question that would prove his sudden idea true, finally he just blurted it out. "You loved him, didn't you, Sumomo?" She responded oddly, tilting her head back with her eyes closed, the girl laughed softly.

"Once, when we were little, we said we were going to run away and get married some day. It was something silly, a ridiculous little kid thing, we didn't even really know what getting married entailed back then, but we were going to do it. I remember telling him that we would live in a big, pretty house in Yuusari and that every morning I would cook breakfast for us and kiss him goodbye on the cheek before he left for work. He told me that he would work hard and bring home funny stories to tell me about his day along with the money for us and our families to live comfortably, and before we went to sleep, he would make sure to tell me I was the prettiest girl in all of Amberground, and promise that that would never change. Over the years I never forgot about that—even kind of hoped one day that our silly imagined future as kids might end up coming true… I loved him as much as I could at a young age, and that love only grew because we were always together." She murmured the words gently, fragile smile returning to her lips as she recalled the memory. To Tripp, it looked like she could have been any other girl for once; she wasn't being overly cheery or weird, she was talking about a childhood friend that she had loved and lost. The conversation seemed to bring a certain softness he had never seen before to her face, more peaceful than purely happy or sad, was it wistfulness? He would have bet anything that she would have done absolutely anything to see this friend of hers again.

As they came to a stop before the marker, Sumomo placed a single gloved hand on the smooth, cold cement shaped in the typical stick-star shape not unlike the hundreds that sat crowded together in one window of Dr. Thunderland Jr.'s massive research lab. It wasn't incredibly remarkable, but it was a grave marker—there were hardly ever any here that were remarkable. "Hey old friend…" He heard her murmur as she kneeled down before it, but only barely. She spoke softly enough that the words almost escaped his ears, and what she spoke after was lost to him. Instead of trying to hear her, he focused on the words engraved in the cement: "Faus Cartez; his heart was always divided between work and home, so his mark has settled here. A wonderful son and brother, best friend to all who needed one, he is greatly missed. May he always be remembered with love." Underneath the epitaph were his birth and death dates, and Tripp shivered as he read them. He had only been sixteen.

"Oh?" Sumomo's murmur of surprise brought Tripp's attention back to her. She was still crouched down, but a slip of paper rested in her gloved grasp.

"What is it?" His curiosity got the better of him as he leaned over to look at the paper as well. The girl shrugged and Melody sniffed the paper as she pulled off one glove with her teeth to unfold the paper.

"I don't—Oh!" Sumomo spoke as she unfolded the paper, breaking off in a gasp as she looked down to see the eerily familiar handwriting. She turned as bleached white as the starlight-covered sand in Jose, the White Desert as she read, while Tripp read silently over her shoulder what appeared to be a poem written on the paper.

"_After all this time has passed,_

_Wouldn't you like to know one thing true?_

_I left this world with a smile on my face,_

_Comforted by memories of you._

_-I'm so sorry, Su-chan."_

There was no signature, but with the way Sumomo was acting it didn't need one. Shakily, the Bee stood with a shake of her head. "C'mon, Tripp," she told him, suddenly firm, "let's get these deliveries done." She jammed the paper into her jacket as she walked away as quickly as she could without running. She wanted to run, she wanted to run away as fast as she could and never look back. Against the empty road and permanent night with no company but the squirrel on her shoulder, Tripp swore she looked like the most lonely person in all of Amberground. Sumomo had to hide her tears—it was a sick joke to play, she thought, but couldn't help wondering. Su-chan….that used to be his nickname for her, no one else knew that, and that had been _his_ handwriting. No one else's but his, and she had at least one letter to compare it to prove it to anyone that doubted.

_Could he…? No, he would have come back if he was! And the way it was worded…_ Sumomo shook her head again in effort to clear it, fighting to keep a level head among all the confusion welling up inside her as a result of the poem-letter. Trying to ground herself to Amberground before she drifted away, she repeated the last line of his epitaph over and over again in her head like a mantra. _May he always be remembered with love, may he always be remembered with love, may he always be remembered with love…_

Tripp and Melody followed a distance behind her, wondering just what it was about the words on the paper that had gotten her so upset. They would never know because she would never tell them; she would even deny the note's existence after that day, ignoring the fact it was hidden in one of her dresser drawers along with his last letter to her. She told no one else about it, and, though she continued to visit the marker regularly, nothing like it would ever appear again. However, she always carried that tiny hope that the letter-poem had given her deep down in the very bottom of her heart—maybe, just _maybe_, he was somehow still alive…

The day after, a note could have been found at the marker's base. Written in small, elegant handwriting, one opening it would have found a very short message inside. It read as follows:

"_Faus,_

_Maybe one day, we'll make amends_

_For all the letters written that we'll never send._

_-I miss you."_

By the time she passed by the marker again that day in the evening, it was gone. Mentally, she tried to convince herself it had been blown away by the wind, but, like always since she'd found that first note, the suspicion nagged at her. _Maybe, just maybe…_ It whispered to her. In response, Sumomo only shook her head, scattering the thoughts before they had the chance to hurt her, before the idea could make her cry. Ironically, as she predicted, he wrote a response, but never "sent" it to her as her had the first. He knew it would only cause her more grief.

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><p><strong>AN: And there's an end to the first of hopefully many to come! Hopefully you guys enjoyed it, and if you didn't get the end...well, just keep an eye out for updates. If you liked it or had questions/comments, please review! This author loves hearing feedback. :)**


	2. Reverse Side: Thinking of You

**A/N: It took me forever, but I finally finished the follow-up for With Love! ...I blame it on all those TV shows mom is getting me to watch, like Grimm. I had a change of Betas for once since Chibi's kind of grounded...so this time MAJOR thanks goes out to Glacies for looking over this and point out all the mindless mistakes I needed to correct! Hope you all enjoy the fic!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Tegami Bachi; that belongs to Hiroyuki Asada. However, my OCs and ideas are mine, and I will break bones over theft of them. :)**

**Now, on with the fic!**

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><p><strong>Reverse Side: Thinking of You<strong>

"I'm so sorry, Sumomo." He whispered, and then the Gaichuu lunged. He felt the first feeler wrap around his arm with a slapping sound and began to pull those oh-so-important memories of her away from him. That was when he began to fight it, trying weakly to pull away. The spirit amber on his Shindanjuu had begun to glow with the force of those memories, then dimmed as they were ripped away, only to brighten again as he resolved to take those memories back even if it killed him. "No!" He shouted in protest. "Not those memories, not my memories of her!"

With his renewed resolve came his dingo's determination to help him. Oursa gave a fierce snarl as she shoved herself off the ground, letting out what sounded very much like a roar before slamming into the Gaichuu's many feelers with her claws flying to try and cut their heart-stealing connection to her master. She continued to let out snarls as she attacked the feelers as best she could, ignoring the feelers that wrapped around her as well and began to take her own memories away.

_Boy cub…_ He froze a moment as the memories intermingled while the Gaichuu took them, sharing some between each other before the heartless armored bug could consume them. The memory of a distorted face looking down on him with hair the color of caramel and eyes the exact same golden shade of brown as honey filled his head for a brief moment. With a jolt, he realized it was him, as Oursa saw him. _My cub…_ Another memory of him flashed by, he was curled up against her side, asleep. _Must protect boy cub!_There went yet another, this time of her fighting Gaichuu before.

_"Promise me you'll be careful, Faus?"_There went another one of his, one about her again.

"I'll try!" He shouted in response to the question in his memory that he would forget a half-second later, even as he pulled away and spotted the Gaichuu's exposed weak spot. Fueled by the memories as well as his determination not to lose them permanently and adrenaline, he swung his Shindanjuu around to the Gaichuu and pointed, the spirit amber lighting up in response. "Here goes nothing!" He shouted as the name of his Shindan escaped him, yet he still fired off the single shot that seemed to sense his need and went exactly where he needed it to, slamming into the armor's weak point. In an instant, the Gaichuu ceased to exist, sending the now empty armor crashing to the ground and the stolen pieces of the boy's heart flying back to him. Oursa fell heavily next to him and did not move or make a noise afterward, while he did much the same, unable to move or speak himself. He had nearly lost all of his heart, there wasn't really much left, but it was enough to keep both his body and identity alive.

"Oh, oh dang! Kam, hey, KAM! There's a Bee over here, he looks pretty bad—might not even be alive. There's Gaichuu armor everywhere, and I don't think his dingo is alive at all! Get over here!" Sometime afterward (because he wasn't sure just how much time had passed) he heard the feminine voice yell. Moments later, after the sounds of rock sliding and feet hitting the ground rather hard, he got that intense feeling someone was close by him, and not the obvious sense due to the voices talking, but the strange feeling someone was standing fairly close to him. He turned his head, opening his eyes as he did, attempting to find the person invading his space. At this point, the same voice piped up again, letting out a sharp curse before shouting "Hurry it up, Kam, he's alive!

"Shaddup, Kistoone! I'm coming as fast as I can, if he's alive, see just how alive he is!" A sharp, male voice responded from somewhere not too far off—not too far away to be able to miss the biting annoyance that made him cringe, that was for sure.

The woman's voice let out a soft laugh as she bent down, looking straight into his face, "He's just naturally crabby, no need to be afraid. I'm the one you'll be dealing with most anyway." She murmured as she did, giving him his first look at her. She was fairly pretty, with wild auburn hair that framed her face and hugged her jaw line, with vibrant light blue eyes set into almost bronze-colored skin. Around her neck seemed to be some kind of scarf or shirt collar made of fluffy fur that almost had the exact same color of the chippa flower fluff that floated in off Jose, the White Desert, on the occasional breeze during blooming season—it gave one the impression that her neck was surrounded by a freshly fallen patch of snow that starkly contrasted her bronze skin. "Still able to talk?" He struggled for a moment, focusing on the word and how to make his mouth move in such as way that that word would come out audible and understandable.

"Yes…" The soft word flitted on butterfly wings between them, barely there, but still present. The young woman's eyes widened and she cursed again, but kept going.

"Got a name? Mine's Kistoone." Faintly, he thought her name was a bit odd, but so was she. He only had to look at her to know this woman was strange… And then back to focusing on getting out words again, thinking out every movement of his lips and forcing out sound.

"Faus." He muttered, practically spitting the word out, trying to make it sound more solid this time. Kistoone patted his arm gently in comfort, giving him an obviously fake smile.

"That's good, you haven't lost your heart yet, then." She told him. Once again, Faus the strange urge to laugh.

"Al…most…" Two-syllable words are much harder, he found, which practically promised that sentences were far beyond his reach. Kistoone frowned, but was prevented from saying anything more because the man had finally made it to them.

"He still alive?" The male voice asked: Faus watched Kistoone nod wordlessly.

"Barely, but he's giving me coherent answers. How about the dingo?" She asked, and Faus tried to focus, waiting on the answer and holding onto hope that somehow, maybe, just maybe…. No, he knew the answer already.

"Dead." He hadn't bothered to really entertain the thought she might be alive as a truth. She had had to fight to get up to save him, it was only the determination to save him that had kept her from falling to the strain of fighting and the Gaichuu taking her heart earlier. In spite the fact he was expecting it, that didn't ease the pain from the wave of sadness that crashed over him at the finality of the words. The bear had been the only remnant of his life back home, and even then…

"You okay?"

He blinked, eyes flickering to Kistoone.

"Mostly, Oursa…" He turned his head to the mass of thick brown fur not too far from him and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, Kistoone still hovered over him, looking apologetic. There was nothing any of them could have done, he knew, but he couldn't really explain or try to tell her. He could barely get a few words out; a whole explanation as to why no one could have saved his dingo. "It's okay… Can you get…me to the next town?" He was almost delighted to find the though he was still weak, his speech was getting better, and it was getting easier to talk. Above him Kistoone's expression grew conflicted and she looked to the man with her. Faus didn't follow her gaze, but he did hear the man speak.

"I'm sorry, that just won't do. Kill him." The order was flat and emotionless; Faus shivered and Kistoone gaped.

"Kam!" She exploded "He just won back his life from a Gaichuu and his partner is dead—we can't just kill him!"

"He's barely alive and the loss'll burden him. It will be freeing him. Besides, he's a Bee, Kistoone! A slave to the government! Don't you remember what we've been through, what we've been taught?" The man had started shouting at her, but she refused to back down.

"He's made it this far, he won his life! The gods will look down on me if I kill him; he's a person, Kamui, a _living, breathing, person_! We would be no better than those who put us through our trials, we have morals, or at least you used to, and these go against them!" She challenged him with a bladeless attack, face twisted into a mask of anger and sadness that might have had confusion of pain mixed in.

"He's a person who has chosen corruption; it's against my _morals_to let him live. Furthermore, I have no affiliation with your gods, Kistoone. If you have objections, then I'll do it." Kistoone was standing in a flash and Faus watched as she jumped over his body, her hand flying to a holster on her leg before shooting out of his vision.

"I have objections to his murder at out hands! Let's enlighten him—I'm sure Laurence wouldn't mind if we were able to convince him, and even if we couldn't, I'm sure we could. Of we could take him to the next town and leave him there, but whatever we do Kam, _no killing_. I don't want to see any more killing; that's not what we signed up for, it's not our job." She sounded almost hysterical, her voice trembling as the volume of her voice raised and lowered itself dramatically. It sounded as though Kistoone was on the verge of tears. "Please, Kam, please…"

There was a long silence before the man spoke. "Fine," he said coldly, "But this is all on you. He's yours to take care of, to enlighten, to get in trouble over when it inevitably happens. I have nothing to do with this or him."

"Thank you!" Kistoone let out an explosive sigh of relief and scrambled back to Faus, wearing a comforting smile.

"Don't you worry," She assured him softly while she tried to pick him up as gently as she could. "I'll make sure everything is alright." As she spoke, the energy it had taken Faus to deal with the whole situation up until now seemed to leave him in a rush and he slipped over the edge of consciousness and into soft, inviting blackness.

~Three Years Later~

They had been agents of the Reverse. Faus always remembered the initial shock and revulsion he'd displayed when Kistoone told him, but he had had no choice and they seemed nice enough. (Well, Kistoone, anyway. Kamui tended to act as though he didn't exist.) They'd even buried Oursa. It was Reverse or death, and he actually had a possibility of escaping the Reverse…or so he had thought when he first agreed to join. Kistoone had been right—Laurence was incredibly persuasive, but he didn't have to be with people like Zeal running around. He had taken up the hate for the twisted Amberground government, however he did not agree with their ideas on how to go about taking it down and the Bees down with it. He had made friends among the Reverse; they were a ragtag little group of messengers and "missionaries" that Kistoone and Kamui seemed to head, however they were fairly interesting.

Even though he was a member of the Reverse, there was one thing related to the government that he couldn't give up—her. She had become a Bee like she promised him she would, but without him. He did not directly approach her, but that didn't stop him from looking from afar. She had had a grave marker made for him and placed it halfway between Central Yuusari and their hometown, he visited it as often as he could and had seen her visiting it from the top of the hill not too far away.

That was the hill he sat on now, watching her and some blonde boy at the marker. "What is it you're so interested in about that marker? You've been here every morning we stay in a town located anywhere close by, Kistoone says you try to go every day, but wouldn't say why." Faus turned his head to see sepia eyes looking at him intently. He had peaked Noir's curiosity? That was new. He chuckled and looked back out to the pair at the marker before gesturing to it.

"She couldn't. Mom doesn't even really know. No one gets it, but they've never bothered to ask why. That marker out there? It's mine." He turned back to the young man he had known three years previous as Gauche Suede, just as those sepia eyes so focused on his face widened in slight surprise. He smiled and nodded, not seeming to care. "Those memories you no longer have, I bet one of them included visiting there at least once. Never saw Gauche there, but I doubt Su-chan bought all those flowers that first week. We were okay with each other; he was working for his sister and I was there for my family. We were both hard to catch, but hey, what can you do? It seems to be what, ah, killed us both." He said good-naturedly, and in response, Noir tilted his head. "What?"

"You don't talk about Gauche in relation to me like Laurence did." It was deadpanned, a simple pointing out of fact. Faus nodded again, as though his companion had made an interesting point.

"You aren't him, well, not in a personality sense. Your facial expressions are different; your demeanor is totally different than his was. The face and body you wear is Gauche, but your mind is entirely Noir. Your heart is entirely Noir. That's why I don't act like you're one and the same; I knew it from the first time we met, after that first discussion." Noir looked almost thoughtful at that before pointing back to the marker.

"Okay, so the marker is yours, but who are they?" Faus looked to the girl and boy in Letter Bee uniforms with their dingos and smiled again.

"The girl is Sumomo, the squirrel on her shoulder is Aki. She was my best friend when we were little, that's why she's a Bee now. She wanted to keep us together, didn't want to lose her best friend and I didn't want to lose her either—too bad we lost each other anyway… I don't know the boy, probably one of her friends from work." Noir looked like he was thinking again when he looked back to Faus.

"Does it make you sad that you can no longer see her like you used to? Do you miss the things you lost in joining the Reverse?" Faus shifted and looked to the girl again, then back to the Albisian beside him. The smile was more wistful now than warm and happy as he looked back to Noir.

"Of course I miss being able to see her every day, being able to let her hug me and see that huge smile that she smiled just for me… I think about her all the time." Faus shook his head slowly. "I miss almost everything I lost in joining the Reverse. It probably tore my mother to pieces, I had friends in Central, I'm still not sure if she let herself cry—she was always so cheerful when I knew her…" He sighed, letting his words trail off.

"I guess I'm lucky, then, that I don't remember." Noir looked almost sad as he looked to the pair in the distance.

"I'm not so sure. Were they to come rescue us, you wouldn't remember all those so happy to see Gauche, all those people happy to see you. Gauche or not, you have a sister and friends who would be devastated you didn't remember them, didn't think of them while you were gone." He thought a moment before speaking again. "In a way, that would be worse, I think." Noir shifted uncomfortably.

"They won't come to rescue us." It was firm, scolding, he still looked to the pair at the grave marker and watched as the girl appeared to pick up something.

"We could get lucky, why not have hope?" Noir snorted, shaking his head as he almost swore Faus' response reminded him of somebody he once knew.

"For you, you might consider it lucky. I don't remember anything, why would I consider it lucky?" He snapped back in rarely-shown agitation.

"Because people loved Gauche and whether or not you remember it, you are Gauche. Whether or not you remember in time, that's still the body you wear. They loved Gauche, they could learn to love you. Heck—you could learn to care for them as well." Neither looked at each other, but watched as the girl stood, shaking her head. She jammed something into her pocket and began to walk quickly away.

"What was _that_ about?" He asked, tearing his sepia gaze from the girl in the Letter Bee uniform and the boy with his dog following at a distance as they walked away to a wistful-looking Faus.

"I left her a letter today, just this once." He said, and with that, he stood and walked away. Noir didn't wait very long before he followed after him.

The next day, Noir found Faus on that same hilltop looking down at a piece of paper. "What is that?" The young man asked, causing the other to jump.

"She wrote back. Not sure why, but she wrote back." He held out the letter (though whether it could be called a letter or not was questionable, it was only a few lines) to Noir. Almost reverently, Noir took the letter—he had never received a letter before, yes, he'd taken them from others, but never received one himself. The fact that Faus was letting him read one addressed to him was slightly amazing. Looking at it, Noir wasn't sure exactly what he was expecting to see, but the words written on the paper definitely weren't it.

"_Faus,_

_Maybe one day, we'll make amends_

_For all the letters written that we'll never send._

_I miss you."_

He stared at the words written on the paper in neat, elegant handwriting and got the impression that this girl had managed to pour all of her heart out into those three lines. The impression left him feeling oddly sad, wistful even, wishing that maybe he _could_ remember those who missed him as much as this girl missed Faus. _Maybe,_ he thought, _maybe one day you'll be able to tell each other what those letters contained… Just like maybe I will be able to remember one day, too…_ He handed the letter back to Faus.

"Maybe one day we'll get lucky and they'll come rescue us. Then you can share those letters and I can see those who miss Gauche as that girl misses you." Faus took the letter back with a shake of his head.

"That was just an example yesterday." Faus said bitterly. "They aren't coming to rescue us—it's been three years for me, two for you, Noir. They think we're dead. If we do meet them again, it'll be as enemies—we'll have to strike them down or be struck down ourselves, no matter how much we wish for a different outcome." Faus stares with cold eyes into the sepia ones that now look hurt, upset, undeniably let down.

"But you—" Noir started, but he was cut off.

"Faaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuus! Hey, Faus!" Both heads turned to look for the voice's owner, but they already knew who it was without having to look—Des was the only one who would call him like that. It only took them a moment to locate him as Des wasn't exactly an inconspicuous individual; there he was, running up the hill with his stranded starlight hair flying behind him and Roda at his side.

"Noir!" Roda shouted, and Faus couldn't hold back a tiny smile. She still followed him around without fail, be it out of forgotten habit or simply because of her namesake—it was nice to see that one of them got to keep their dingo, he thought. He still missed Oursa, still felt the pain of his dingo's absence though Kistoone was all too happy to go along with him on trips for the Reverse when they didn't all go together. "I _told_ you." Roda's sharp retort to some remark Des must have made to her earlier brought Faus back to the present. He watched as Des held up his hands in a gesture of joking defense.

"I didn't say you were wrong, Roda. I just said I didn't know and wasn't sure you wanted to waste time looking here if I was already going." Roda sniffed at him and moved to stand by Noir.

"You doubted me." She threw over her shoulder contemptuously. Des sighed and looked to Faus and rolled his eyes over Roda's lack of manners; where Noir was concerned, she could be unrelentingly obnoxious, they simply accepted that as a fact of life that couldn't be fixed.

"Mom wants to see you. Not sure what for, but she wants to see you." Mom was the name they commonly used when they referred to Kistoone, who treated all the members of their ragtag little group, with the exception of Kamui, like they were her children in spite the fact that she was twenty-one. Faus shrugged and looked back to Noir and Roda, Roda seemed to be inspecting her companion for sign of any injury or change since he'd managed to sneak away from her to go after Faus.

"You two coming back with us?" Noir looked up from Roda, and for a moment, Faus would have sworn the expression he wore was purely Gauche. It was a look of questioning unaltered by the usual bitterness-hardened features that so often defined him as Noir rather than Gauche, a look almost seeming to ask if it was really okay to come with them. Faus held back a chuckle and nodded, gesturing for them to follow. The group proceeded down the hillside and back to the camp with soft discussion flitting among them. Among the topics were the weather, dinner, where to next, and so on until the day faded into normalcy.

Kistoone had wanted to take a trip to the next town to buy more supplies and he'd allowed himself to be dragged along without complaint. He passed familiar houses, streets Sumomo had played in when they were young, faces he had grown up seeing; passed them all quietly with the hood of his cloak pulled securely over his face. All the while he was still listening to the young woman's innocent chatter as she sorted through supplies and tugged him around like her own personal shopping cart and ignoring the stares she attracted. The cold never seemed to bother her, so she ran around wearing what she pleased—often a brown, leather-like skirt slit up both sides that Kamui forced her to wear a pair of shorts under along with bandages wrapped around her feet like shoes, as well as at random-seeming points along her arms and torso. Covering a good portion of the torso bandages was a semi-hardened leather top that she had dyed blue herself and collared with a massive amount of fur that resembled a ton of chippa flower fluff all collected and somehow strung together into one huge, fluffy mass. He wore a simple black, hooded cloak that covered his face and plain, dark clothes. Unlike her, he didn't speak, and just barely made any kind of noise, as though he was trying to blend into the background and fade away.

This was in part due to the fact he had spotted a girl with long hair the color of caramel and warm brown eyes walking around the market—his sister, Ava. He'd notice her anywhere. A young boy of three or so clung to her hand and babbled on incomprehensibly as Ava towed him behind her through the market. Kistoone either didn't notice the resemblance, or she simply didn't care as she struck up a friendly conversation with the girl over a bin of freshly grown apples, however Faus could only focus on the child, who had that noticeable light brown hair that was the exact color of caramel and eyes that leaned more towards a golden brown than anything else—so similar in color to his eyes it was slightly disturbing. However, the final nail in the coffin was when the child burst out with a sharp cry of "Faus!" before erupting into giggles and reverting back to his senseless babble. Faus stiffened, suddenly frozen in place while Kistoone tensed before Ava's eyes flashed with pain and she patted the boy's hand.

"I'm sorry if he startled you, Felix likes to be loud from time to time… Particularly our late elder brother's name…he looks so much like him that most of what he's heard from his birth is 'He looks so much like Faus…' It's kind of his favorite word." She looked back up to them and Faus could see she was on the verge of tears even after three years of his absence. He wanted to hug her then, wanted to cast away his cloak and hug the both of them and yell 'I'm not dead, I'm not gone! I'm alive and right here and I'm never going to leave you again!' and then do exactly as he said he would—but he couldn't. He was supposed to be dead and there was no way he could leave the Reverse, even if he wanted to.

When they left shortly afterwards, Faus told Kistoone to never bring him back. He couldn't take seeing his family like that again.

Night found him hidden away in his room for most of its duration, emerging at some point with a folded square of paper in his hand. Kistoone and Kamui must have retreated to their rooms and gone to bed, as Noir with Roda curled against his side, asleep, and Des were the only three who sat around the fireplace, which held a slowly dying fire. Without a word to anyone, Faus marched up to the fireplace and tossed the paper into the flames. Noir almost stood, then seemed to remember Roda was asleep against him and stopped himself. "Faus, what are you doing?" He asked, sounding almost worried.

"Giving myself another thing to make amends for." The cryptic reply would have made no sense had he not shown Noir Sumomo's response that morning. He stared on as the fire claimed the paper; it was a response to her letter—a response he would never let her see.

She didn't need the grief and he didn't want her to get hurt in the process of looking for him if she decided the letters were really from him. He did, however, need the sense of closure.

Des shot Noir a curious look around Faus' body, eerily lit by the firelight, but Noir said nothing. Faus closed his eyes as the paper turned to ash, picturing the words he had written there and was now permanently erasing.

_Su-chan,_

_No matter where I go, or what I do,_

_Just know that somewhere,_

_Out there,_

_I'll always be thinking of you._

_-Maybe one day, but not anytime soon._

_-I miss you too._

_-So much._

With that, he turned around and walked away. _Maybe, one day…_ he thought before shaking his head. _No, what a _joke. No one would come to rescue him or Noir. After all, who would rescue dead men?

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><p><strong>AN: And that's a wrap for now! Hopefully everyone liked it, and if you did, I really enjoy hearing comments/feedback, etc. I have a lot of these to stop and type up, so hopefully I'll have another update ready soon.**


	3. Pretend

**A/N: Soooooo here's one of my more screwed up pieces, to put it simply. I ended up deciding while working on Kistoone's character design that there should be a bit of reasoning behind all the bandages she wears, and at the same time I needed reasoning as to why she and Kamui joined the Reverse. Eventually this is what I came up with. Hope you guys like it in spite of all it's depressingness (Is that even a word? Lol.) and don't try to send me to the mental ward or anything. XD Thanks goes back to Chibi for betaing this one since she's back now!**

**Anyway, on with the fic!**

**Disclaimer: Screwed up ideas and chars are mine, all else belongs to Hiroyuki Asada.**

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><p><strong>Pretend<strong>

Kistoone didn't have family left.

But she liked to pretend.

Because pretending was all she could do to keep her very fragile sanity intact. Her personality was a feather-light and incredibly delicate mask that held _her_ together. Kam had very nearly shattered it earlier, and she turned again to look at the reason why. Bright blue eyes fell on the frail body curled up on the bed, asleep now just as he had been for the past few hours. The Bee she had begged Kam to let her save, Faus.

Her newest child.

"Please, I pray you don't hate me for this." She whispered, kneeling at the bedside and folding up her arms to rest her head on them. "I'm sorry, I just can't do it. Can't watch death or commit murder. Not after how…my home… Nah, forget it, you don't wanna know. I'm just a softhearted girl who believes everything deserves the chance to live if it can fight off its enemies in a fair fight… You did that with that Gaichuu even though it nearly killed you. Therefore, in my eyes, you deserve a chance to live." The young woman sighed, freeing one hand to play with the caramel-colored strands of hair falling in his face. To her relief, his face held an expression of gentle peace, free of trouble or pain like it had been when they first brought him there. She wasn't as worried about his condition now that she had bandaged him up and seen his sleeping expression become calm. When he woke, she'd see to it that he ate and then she would assess his mental state.

She was _such_ a mother at heart. Des and Kam (Des moreso than Kam) laughed and called her "mother" or "mom" jokingly from time to time, but she wasn't bothered by it.

Actually, she liked being called mom. She doubted she would ever really have babies of her own; even if she would allow herself to get that close to another person, she would be constantly tormented by the idea that she would lose all of them and not be able to do a thing about it. Just like how she lost her real family.

Just like how she lost her entire village.

Kistoone was scared to death behind that mask because _[Who are they? What do they want here? They look funny, mommy, where are they from?]_ she was haunted by her _[Mommy, what was that? Why are they hurting Chief Elder? Why doesn't he get back up? Mommy? Mommy…?]_ past. Every time she closed her eyes _[Why are they hurting us? Where's daddy? Mommy, what did we do to—Mommy? What's wrong? Mommy! Mom! Get up! Why won't you—NO!] _she saw chaos, firelight, bodies, blood, the deceitful men attacking and killing her people.

Her _[No, no! NononononononoNO! Let me go! Mommy, help! ] family._

She saw the massacre of _[No! Stopit_stopit_STOPIT! You're HURTING me! What do I do?]_ innocent people she knew her whole life. Kistoone felt the kicks, the stabs, the burns they left her with that hadn't allowed her peace ever since. _[What did _we do?]

She was the only one left alive by some small miracle that seemed more a curse than a blessing. Then Kamui found her.

He stumbled into the decimated village with a nasty limp and looking only slightly better than her. She knew him, but not personally; he had been a friend of a friend who wasn't that much of a friend. He came looking for Rielle and gotten her instead, but the look on his face had been nothing short of awed as he watched her rise unsteadily from the rest of the bodies, bleeding and burnt, but with her head held high,

He didn't seem to mind getting her instead when they began to depend on each other to get past recovery. That alone had been a black hole that it had taken nearly forever to get out of, but during that time they learned it was the a group of men hired by the government that had destroyed their peace, their lives, and Kistoone's home along with everyone in it. When the Reverse showed up, there was no question as to whether or not they would join. In fact, when they joined, they never looked back; their past was full of pain and scars left behind by hired men that would haunt them for the rest of their lives.

This particularly held true for Kistoone.

So she liked to pretend, it made the pain go away for awhile.

"Mom?" She lifted her head to see Des standing in the doorway. "Kam said we had a new addition and you were tending to him. He asked me to bring you this." He gestured with a bandage-covered left hand to the bowl he held in his right. She couldn't hold back a smile then, Kam liked acting as if he didn't care, but Kistoone had been able to see right through it from the beginning.

"Oh, thank you both." She told him as she took the bowl from him, though Des' eyes were focused on Faus. "He's a Bee that just narrowly survived a Gaichuu attack. I wouldn't let Kam kill him, though. Couldn't. So he's ours now—mine, mostly. Kam doesn't want a thing to do with him, kind of like with you…he's not a very good father." She started downing the soup the moment she stopped speaking. Des shrugged, it was all he really could do; Kam would be Kam, and Kam would be antisocial. Their new members were handled primarily by Kistoone until Kam decided he liked them, or—more commonly—decided they were tolerable. It had taken him forever to get used to Des and Laurence had brought Des to them himself. Knowing this, Kistoone doubted he would get used to Faus any time soon.

Until then, it seemed like he was all hers. And maybe Des' if he wanted to help out.

"Can't blame him for not wanting to care for a Bee boy so close to death. We both know he shut down after…your village, his knee…" Des knew that story, but not like they did. He had been an Akatsuki experiment, the proof was his bandaged left arm, which looked as though he had traded his arm with some demon.

"I know, but after seeing all…that, he wouldn't want to see…" She shivered at the return of the memories to the front of her mind and Des patted her shoulder comfortingly.

"Not everyone takes everything the same way, Mom." He reminded her softly. "So, do you know his name?"

"Faus." She told him the name that the now unconscious boy had forced out, trying to make it sound more solid than it was. "He told me his name was Faus."

Des smiled a little and looked to the boy again. "Hmm, odd name, but hey, Des is just as odd." The silver-haired man said to her.

"No more odd than Kistoone. He's a perfect fit in our mismatched little family." She murmured, which produced a laugh from Des as he released her shoulder.

"True, true. Well I'm going to go to sleep, you probably oughta get some too, but anyway, 'night, mom." He told her, and then he was gone and it was just Faus and her in the room again. After a moment of thought, Kistoone wordlessly rested her elbows on the bed and clasped her hands together before she closed her eyes and resting the top of her head against her forearms. With that, she sent a letter of sorts heavenward.

_Dear Mother of Faus,_

_I don't blame you if you hate me. I'm a selfish, petty individual and I know it, I deserve your hate for taking your son away from you, but I couldn't let him die. I doomed him to a life of acting against the government he once worked for, but I'll try to keep him safe. He'll be well taken care of, though, like an adopted son for a mother who can have no children…because that's basically what I am. A selfish "mother," but one who loves her children no matter what. Hate me if you will, but—_

"Kistoone?" She opened her eyes to find eyes the exact same shade of golden brown that resembled honey looking back at her; Faus had woken.

"Yeah, Faus?" The hands unclasped and folded as she spoke in a gentle tone no louder than a stage whisper.

"Can I have something to eat? I'm hungry." She almost laughed at how timid he sounded, as if asking for food was a crime, but only smiled pleasantly at him as she stood.

"Of course, hold on." She assured him as she fell back into her motherly personality and out of seriousness once more.

She liked to pretend, after all.

_~End~_

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><p><strong>AN: Yes, I know I'm twisted. Hopefully you still liked this in spite of it! Anyway, guys, please review, I love hearing feedback from readers!**


	4. Falling

**A/N: This has, in all seriousness, got to be one of my absolute favorites of this collection of fics...possibly because I manage to make Roda sound fluffy. I'm really not sure why, but it is. However, this fic does take place a LOT later in the manga. I can't remember the exact chapter, but it's up in the 40's and references events from Chapter 22, Film Noir, so yeah...if you aren't there, or have watched the anime, this either contains spoilers or may completely baffle you like it did Chibi while she was betaing in spite the fact she said she didn't mind the spoilers...so to clarify: Roda is NOT dead! XD That being said, thanks again goes out to Chibi...oh! And all the fans of this fic, too, though I'm sure how many of you there are. Anyway, enjoy the double-update and hope you guys like it!**

**Disclaimer: This time around, I own nothing but the idea. :) Tegami and everything in it belongs to Hiroyuki Asada.**

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><p><strong>Falling<strong>

The worst part about falling, Roda decided, was that you eventually had to hit the ground. The fall itself was almost fun, but panic set it when you took one good look at the ground and realized that you would most likely die when you hit it. She had fallen often enough in her life—at least, in her short memory, and often times the scariest moments of the whole ordeal was landing on your feet in one piece. It was kind of like the deceiving nature of dreams; the worst thing about them was that no matter how beautiful it was, you always had to wake up from them. Then you remembered that pretty, perfect world for the rest of your life, knowing you could never have it.

There were lots of things Roda knew she could never have.

She dreamed once that she was a dog, a pretty white dog that looked much like a wolf and followed her master around because she loved her master. That master was Noir, only in the dream he was called Gauche Suede like he used to be and he was cheerful, more expressive, and kind. He was a Letter Bee, and she was his dingo who proudly fought to protect him from harm. At the end of the day, they would return to Central Yuusari to a little house that Gauche called home and where his wheel-chair-bound little sister waited for them with smiles and hugs and sometimes nasty soup. Dog-Roda smothered the cheerful little girl with kisses as soon as the opportunity presented itself because she loved to hear the little girl, Sylvette, laugh. The life they lived was simple, but it was also nice.

When she had woken up, human-Roda had found herself in tears over the sense of massive loss gripping her heart, whether or not the dream was lost memory or fantasy. It was a life they would never have or get back, no more happy Gauche or Noir, no more being a dingo in the sense it was meant to be used in, no more little house in Central, no more Sylvette and her cheerful greetings or smothering the laughing child with kisses… It really bothered her; she could have lived in that dream forever and been happy, even as a dog, but it appeared she just wasn't meant to live there.

She couldn't have that life, just like she couldn't have Noir. He was treated as property of the Reverse; he couldn't just go anywhere he wanted even if had someplace to go in mind. They couldn't just leave; the Reverse would hunt them down because as far as Roda could tell, they needed Noir to do anything and everything remotely important related to their plans to take over the government and put out the man-made sun. Their lives had been one big jump from the moments they had woken, she a fair bit earlier than he. She had been falling since she woke up and Laurence began loading her with information about the identity of the man she now called Noir; the man who meant _everything_ to her. He had told her about herself as well, but he gave her no name to go by, only the knowledge that she was the result of experimentation in Akatsuki and that she was supposedly born in his homeland—where that was, she had no idea. She landed on a ledge for a moment the day before he woke, as Laurence seemed to run out of information to fill her with.

Then he woke up, and she was falling again. She ran to the edge of an endless abyss as Laurence announced to Noir (then Gauche) that he would be in her care. Before then, she had watched from the hallway leading into the room; what she saw tore her _heart_ in half. He didn't know who he was, the battered boy on the table who could barely hold himself upright and had to fight to speak. She took the leap as she stepped past Laurence and into the room with him. She almost couldn't speak, what was there to say? She couldn't introduce herself as she had no name, and she was still torn over his appearance, yet it was his appearance that prompted her first words. Eyes full of confusion and helplessness focused on her, he lay waiting for her to speak with one hand outstretched… Suddenly she found words and could move again. "Your hand…" She murmured, and took his much larger hand in hers. In that small motion, she had pulled him off the ledge and into free fall with her.

Their first year with the Reverse had been spent in that free fall, touching ground for mere half-seconds before they were falling again. They hit the ground for maybe a few minutes when after a year of teaching, learning, and traveling had passed, Laurence was confident enough to return Noir's (Gauche's) Shindanjuu, Gymnopedies, to his possession. That was when Noir became Noir and things really began. It was shortly afterward that he named her Roda, a name that sounded somehow all too familiar to her, a name that sounded _just right_ to her. They fell through their second year as well, stalled a bit from time to time as they met members of the Reverse, but it didn't stop them much. From then on, they fell and fell without interruption for the next three years.

And then they hit rock bottom, courtesy of a young boy (he might have been as old as Sylvette from her dream should be now) named Lag Seeing who knew Gauche and was determined to bring him back, even though Noir told him that Gauche didn't exist any more. The boy made her heart feel warm like being with Noir did, brought back "memories" from that dream she had years ago. It seemed Noir would have to fall on his own for awhile as their paths diverged…

Roda looked away from the house window, smiling faintly. Inside the house, a scene that could have been from that long-ago dream played out; Noir sat at a small table beside Sylvette, with Lag Seeing and his dingo sat across from them, eating dinner. Sylvette was talking animatedly, much like she had in the dream, while Lag looked more subdued though he spoke up now and then. The room was filled with the soft glow of flames and she imagined it was probably just as warm inside as it looked. The only thing that convinced her that her dream had not come true was that she wasn't there with them, which saddened her—grabbed her heart and squeezed tight because she _wanted_ to be there with them. She wanted to run through the door and hug Sylvette, tell the girl she was sorry she hadn't protected Gauche better, then think Lag Seeing for bringing them both _home _where they _belonged_…

But then again, there were lots of things Roda wanted to do that she never would. For now, she would simply be content with the knowledge that he was truly happy for the first time that she remembered. He was falling on his own for once, and she knew it would be a short fall—beautiful, but short. She wasn't falling with him, no, but that just meant that for once she could catch Noir before he hit the ground.

_~End~_

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><p><strong>AN: So, yeah, this one is a lot happier than Pretend, but oh well! XD Hopefully you guys enjoyed it in spite it's short length... Anyway, again, I love hearing feedback/comments/questions, so please review! See ya' next update! ...Which should, provided I decide to go out of order for another one I love, be on Noir. :)**


	5. Mannequins

**A/N: Whoot! I managed to get this one typed in decent time! Lol, anyway, this is my second favorite among these after Falling, and it also takes place briefly before Falling-a few hours before the dinner scene Roda watches, so again, if you aren't up in the Chapter 40's or higher and don't want spoilers-don't read until you have! Anyway, I got the idea for this listening to One Ring Zero's song Here Come the Mannequins (which is incredibly difficult to find anything but a download link on) after finding them on Suburgatory. XD Anyway, thanks goes out to Chibi for Betaing, hope everyone enjoys it!**

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><p><strong>Mannequins<strong>

"_Here come the mannequins,_

_Avert your eyes, avert your eyes_

_Tall and cruel and terrible,_

_No common ground, no common ground_

_For you, and me, they're an awful sight to see…"_

_-"Here Come the Mannequins" by One Ring Zero_

Noir stared at himself in the mirror; part of him demanded to know just what the heck the guy inside was trying to pull, who _that guy_ in the mirror was. Part of him wondered if the Letter Bee in the mirror would reach out and snatch him-pull him into the glass and trade places with him "again." Except that was absolutely ridiculous—

Because the Letter Bee in the mirror was _him_, even if he didn't really recognize himself. Even if he looked like someone else. Even if the memories he had regained from Lag's Letter Bullet screamed "You are Gauche Suede!" at him.

It was fascinating, as though a more eased and slightly younger mannequin stood on the opposite side of the glass, staring blankly back at him. It was a wonder what an old, single blue uniform, lots of chaotic heart trauma-induced sleep, and spending part of the day at home with "your " little sister could do for you. Gauche still ceased to exist, but with the memories Lag's Letter Bullet and coming "home" to be buffeted by the overflowing love that spilled out of Sylvette Suede in full force, he felt close enough to Gauche that, for once, Noir could almost imagine that the he-who-had-been-long-gone might have actually existed. Gauche had been a real person, and these children—Sylvette and Lag—loved him.

Which was why Noir was pulling this idiotic stunt now, standing before the mirror in the bathroom of _Gauche's_ former place of residence, wearing _Gauche's_ old uniform and thinking that his reflection was in all actuality a very skillfully crafted mannequin because there was _no way_ that was him. He looked away from the mirror that held the mannequin that was his reflection to stare into the sink.

He was Noir the marauder, why the heck was he trying to play Gauche the Letter Bee?

_Because you want to be him._ The answer was incredibly simple, but no less surprising to him; he had spent so much time trying to convince everyone that Gauche no longer existed and yet why was he so willing to become him? As much as he wanted to, Noir couldn't be disgusted with himself, not now that he had some of Gauche's memories and knew now what Gauche had been fighting so adamantly to the point of losing his heart to protect. That made Gauche seem like a better person to him, in some strange way, but _being _with the people he had been fighting for and cared about by…

He was no longer entirely Noir, but if he was really Gauche Suede like his newly "regained memories" claimed, then _who was Noir?_ Was Noir the mannequin here, operating in Gauche's stead, wearing Gauche's old uniform, comforting Gauche's little sister, rescuing Gauche's friend, and doing everything else for Gauche until Gauche himself finally woke up and came back into control? Was he actually real? Did Noir exist, or was he just a figment of his own imagination created to deal with whatever had happened to him in Akatsuki? When Gauche came back, would he just fade away, or would he be forced to watch everything from some dark corner of Gauche's mind, neglected, ignored, and forgotten?

_I'd never do that to you…_ Noir froze, thinking he heard some part of his mind answer his wonderings. Had Gauche stirred from his sleep to answer? He waited a moment but no answer came—maybe he was imagining things?

A knock on the bathroom door startled him out of his thoughts. "Gauche…? Are you okay? Is part of the uniform missing? It shouldn't be, I haven't bothered it since you put it away…" Noir sighed, letting that faint smile that faint reflex smile he had repressed for so long spread across his face. Almost reverently, he lifted the matching hat from the edge of the counter and glanced up to the mirror, meeting the eyes of the mannequin that stood there.

_Curse you, Gauche Suede, they're growing on me!_ He accused mentally as he opened the door to reveal Sylvette sitting in her wheelchair and waiting for him. He thought he heard a soft laugh in the back of his mind, but he said nothing to the phantom laugh he might or might not have been imagining, addressing Sylvette instead. "I'm fine and everything was there, I just… It feels very odd to be wearing this uniform again, and I… Everything just kind of sank in and I had to take a moment. It'll be okay, I promise, Sylvette. Now I have to go help Lag, but I'll bring him back in time for dinner, don't you worry." He let the smile grow a little before quickly pressing a kiss to the top of her head because she's so short, stuck in that wheelchair, and it's the easiest thing he can do. With that, he walks past his little sister and out the door to go save Lag Seeing.

If he _was_ the mannequin meant only to take the place of Gauche Suede temporarily, he was going to make sure to do what he could with the time he had left. He would _not_ let himself be forgotten.

_Plenty would remember you, Noir. Lag and I could certainly never forget._ The voice in back of his head protested and his smile faltered.

_Shut up, I don't feel like being consoled by the voice in my head that may or may not exist._ Thought the mannequin as he continued down the road.

His time playing as Gauche Suede would be over by the time the night ended.

_~End~_

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><p><strong>AN- Well that's it for now, hope you liked it, and if so, please review. It is very much appreciated. :)**


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